I got a chance to check out the M83 / School of Seven Bells show last night at the Fillmore (sorry for the bad pic, all I had was my iPhone). School of Seven Bells is a recent signing to Ghostly so it was nice to finally see them after hearing so much via the label and Jakub’s posts. M83 put on a great show as well, I saw them a couple years back at Bimbo’s 365 with Ulrich Schnauss and it was somewhat tame so I wasn’t sure what to expect this time. It was still your average shoegazy affair but there was definitely a different level of energy to the whole thing. A nice touch to the was their synth rig. I spotted a Doepfar Modular and a DSI Prophet 8. I could have sword I saw a Jupiter (6 or 8, not sure) in there, but given that all their other analogs were modern I’m betting it was something else. The only thing I was disappointed by was the lack of visuals, although the lighting did a pretty good job of making up for it. Anybody else catch the show?

And here are the videos for Teen Angst and Don’t Save Us From The Flames, both of which fit very well stylistically with the Graveyard Girl video.

I went to the show in Minneapolis. I was absolutely blown away, especially by the drummer. He made everything look so easy. One of the best concerts I’ve seen in years. They don’t need visuals, the music speaks for them enough.

4

marcus says:

I saw ’em here in Stockholm a few months back. I was impressed, yet I noticed very early on in the set that everything could have been pre-recorded (though, obviously, it wasn’t). Once the thought appeared, i couldn’t get rid of it during the whole concert. Extremely irritating.

mike313 says:

I saw them the next night in Los Angeles. Liked the show quite a bit. Musically what was the deal with the plexiglass surrounding the drummer? Does it prevent sound bleed or is it used for echo effect?

mike313-
plexiglass around the drummer is somewhat common in that situation. drums are a naturally loud instrument and depending on the power of the PA, they can easily drown out the other instruments in the mix. if you isolate them with the plexi then the mixing engineer has more control of the drums volume relative to the overall mix.

Peter-
ha, is that what that sign said? I saw the tour manager putting it up but never read it. yeah, that was an interesting viewpoint, could see/hear the drummer really well, really cool to see it from that perspective.

I agree on them not having any visual “bells-and-whistles”, all they really relied upon were the house lights… Not totally sure how i feel about it. better visuals probably could have aided the show, but sometimes its refreshing to get a largely electronic band not relying on 50,000 strobes or LED pillars to make the show good.

I was most impressed by the drummer! He was definitely attacking the set with reckless abandon. The typical standouts from Saturdays = youth were exceptionally good, with the couleurs encore really rocking the crowd. I was pretty surprised how well his music transitioned to a live show. I really enjoyed it.